History

Reality

Earth-199999 has many of the features of our reality: many of the same countries, personalities, and historical events. However, it also contains many fictional additions that have reshaped the world historically and developmentally. Super-advanced technology, and the interference of non-human races, sets the stage for a science fiction environment. A multinational policing agency in the form of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been created as a result of these things. A select few people have also appeared who are more than human, setting the stage for a world with superheroes and villains.

Super Heroes and Villains

The tradition of using costumed identities to fight (or commit) evil had long existed in this world, first by Captain America in the 1940s and then by Iron Man in the modern times. Earth-199999's major heroes (the ones who get involved in most of the important events) are Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, the Hulk, ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Black Widow and Hawkeye. These heroes make up the Avengers; the world's premier superhero team. There are "urban level" heroes as well, like Daredevil, Spider-Man among others.

Of course, as one would expect in a universe with superheroes, there would inevitably have to be crime and evil, and this universe is by far no exception. Loki, the Abomination, A.I.M, Hydra, Thanos and Ultron are among them.

Contents

Timeline

The Big Bang

Before the Big Bang, there were six singularities. These opened up and their resulting Big Bang created the universe. The six then compacted into primordial nuggets that came to be known as Infinity Stones.[1]

Millions of Years Ago

Kree came to earth and experimented with humans to genetically modify them into weapons (giving them powers), using a process called Terrigenesis. After the Kree left their experiments, the experimented humans formed their own secret society calling themselves Inhumans.

Thousands of Years Ago

Some time later, Malekith sought to harness the power of the Aether, one of the Infinity Stones, to plunge the Nine Realms into darkness as it was before life was breathed into it. His attempt was foiled by the Asgardians and their king Bor. Malekith resorted to sacrificing most of his people, and fell into sleep for five thousand years, until the next Convergence.[2]

The Dark Ages

After the defeat of the Dark Elves, Asgardians came to the planet known as Earth, visiting the peoples of Northern Europe and teaching them language and culture. Most importantly Asgardians protected them from the Frost Giants. Early Norse cultures learned much from these visits, although in time the Asgardians would withdraw and their memory would fall into legend.[3]

20th Century

The 1940's were a tumultuous time on Earth. Depression years and racial disharmony in Europe sparked a Second World War that pressed various factions into a technology race. While Nazi forces occupied much of Central Europe, a detachment calling themselves Hydra were making gains in unconventional warfare. Their leader Johann Schmidt actually managed to procure one of the Infinity Stones; the Tesseract, left behind on Earth by Asgardians. In studying this device Hydra scientists were able to devise new and deadly weapons for their war effort.

In America, Abraham Erskine and Howard Stark were poised on the verge of a breakthrough that would set the stage for the world of the modern "superhero". Erskine had developed a "Super-Soldier" serum that was to transform a soldier from an ordinary man into something altogether stronger, faster, and more resilient. As a result of this experimental process, Steven Rogers became the world's first superhero, "Captain America", but not without cost. Erskine was assassinated and most of the remaining samples of the serum were destroyed before the project could be pushed into widespread use. Rogers and his Howling Commandos defeated Schmidt, all but destroying Hydra in the process, but at the cost of Captain America himself being listed as missing in action.[4] The greater war was won, not with super soldiers, but with countless lives lost due to simple bloody warfare.[5]

After Captain America, many pursued the creation of another weapon via advances in science. Scientist Hank Pym was the first to succeed, creating a serum that would allow him to shrink down to insect size yet still retain the strength of an average human. He named his findings as Pym Particles and donned the mantle of Ant-Man, making it his mission to protect the world from potential threats.[6][7]

Howard Stark, who had assisted with Erskine's program went on to develop numerous advances in technology and shape the modern world. Learning from the recovered Tesseract, he went on to develop prototype arc reactors, powerful sources of energy in their own right. He eventually died in a car accident, leaving his business empire to his young son, Tony, and Stark Industries grew into a world renowned supplier of weapons technology.[8]

21st Century

The dawn of the superhero age might have looked like a brief spark to those who grew up reading the exploits of Captain America, but it was soon to flare into a far brighter flame. The secrets of Erskine's formula had baffled scientists for decades until Dr. Bruce Banner explored a new direction and bombarded himself with gamma radiation to prove his theories. His experiment was successful in augmenting the human form, but the extent of the mutation was far beyond anything anyone could have anticipated. Banner was transformed into a raging green beast that was later dubbed the "Hulk".[9]

The young Tony Stark had spent the years since his father's death learning the role of businessman and further developing his father's company. An inventive genius himself, he was personally responsible for many of the innovations that made Stark Industries a world leader in weapons technology. On a trip to Afghanistan his convoy was ambushed, and he was held captive and forced to develop weapons for terrorists. He escaped from his captors by building a battlesuit for himself rather than the missile they wanted, but the whole incident had a profound effect on him. He turned his company away from the path of violence, while constructing a series of high-tech battlesuits that he wore into battle himself. Tony's vigilante actions had the effect of ushering in a new superhero age, and taking a leaf from the press he began publicly referring to his heroic persona as "Iron Man".[8]

Iron Man's activities led S.H.I.E.L.D. to take an interest in him. They approached Stark on several occasions and reviewed him for potential inclusion into a select group of individuals, but ultimately withdrew from seeking his personal involvement due to his erratic nature. Instead they turned their attentions to exploring weapons technologies. Their mandate was to protect the world from such powerful threats as the Hulk and to this end they began to grow from a clandestine police agency into a powerful military force.[10]

S.H.I.E.L.D. kept a close eye on multiple threats at once, Tony Stark's adventures as Iron Man, atmospheric disturbances in New Mexico, and Banner's return to the United States.[11] Soon, the Hulk was made known to the public due to brief battles with the military and another huge monster. Banner wasn't hailed as a hero like Tony Stark had been. Instead, Banner was forced into hiding again, learning how to control the Hulk rather than cure it.

The Asgardians, thought to be nothing more than a myth after centuries of absence, returned once again to the world when the heir to the throne of Asgard found himself banished until he could prove himself worthy to rule Asgard. While his initial appearance went unnoticed to all but a few scientists, his hammer Mjolnir caused quite a stir after it impacted in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico, and also drew the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D. Thor did eventually reclaim his birthright and announced that S.H.I.E.L.D. could thereafter count him as an ally.[3]

Alliances would be needed again soon enough. Thanos, in a bid to acquire the Infinity Stones, struck a deal with Thor's brother Loki, to acquire the Tesseract in exchange for rule over the Earth. Immediately upon his surprise return, Loki stole the Tesseract away from S.H.I.E.L.D. In a desperate bid to counter this threat, S.H.I.E.L.D. reactivated an old plan to assemble a group of extraordinary individuals. They called on Tony Stark and Bruce Banner for their scientific expertise. Captain America, reawakened after decades of being frozen in Arctic ice, was called upon to be a super soldier once more. Thor, and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Romanoff and Barton stepped in to round out the new team. Calling themselves the Avengers, they fought Loki and his army of Chitauri to a standstill.[5]

In the wake of the Battle of New York, the world had become a changed place. Some feared the prospect of threats from beyond the known world, but the next threat of significance was a series of terrorist bombings around the globe. Authorities searched in vain for the culprit behind it, and were confounded by the series of hijacked television broadcasts that followed. In the end it was Iron Man, and his ally the Iron Patriot, who put a stop to the terrorist attacks.[12]

Contact with worlds beyond Earth was renewed when the Nine Realms of Asgardian cosmology came into alignment. A threat known as the Aether from a dark time before the Asgardians' protection of the known worlds was reawakened at this Convergence, and with it came the dark elves. It took the combined efforts of Thor and many of his friends to prevent reality itself from being plunged back into darkness.[2]

In response to these numerous threats, S.H.I.E.L.D. commissioned a powerful new protection measure in the form of three new helicarriers. Suspicions surrounding the purpose of these new warships soon saw rogue elements within the agency turn from it and expose a deeper threat behind the new construction effort: Hydra had been infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D. from within, swelling its ranks and influencing its actions, since the end of the Second World War. Hydra's plans for the new helicarriers were finally dashed through the efforts of Captain America and a few of his trusted allies.[13]

S.H.I.E.L.D. ultimately tore itself apart in an internal war between operatives loyal to its founding principles, and those loyal to Hydra. Agent Phil Coulson, resurrected from death just prior to the Battle of New York, and his team evaded much of the conflict, and were instrumental in exposing several of Hydra's many operations. As Coulson had been loyal to the end, Nick Fury appointed him the new director of a new S.H.I.E.L.D. and S.H.I.E.L.D. began to reform.[14]

Far from Earth, a number of factions sought to procure the Orb. Despite a number of very powerful individuals committing vast resources into recovering this object, Peter Quill, a rogue star-hopping native of Earth who had been abducted from his homeworld in his childhood, was the first to claim it. The Orb in truth contained one of the legendary Infinity Stones, and it was soon wrested from Quill by Ronan the Accuser to be used as a weapon to commit genocide of a star-spanning empire. Quill and a ragtag band of criminals executed a daring plan that saw them successfully oppose Ronan and ultimately place the Orb in safekeeping with the Nova Corps. This act earned them the name of Guardians of the Galaxy.[1]

On the streets of New York, "masked superheroes" were given a whole new meaning when blind attorney Matt Murdock began his one-man war against the crime syndicates plaguing Hell's Kitchen. Becoming a crime fighting vigilante, he took down Wilson Fisk, the leader of these criminal organizations, obtaining the name "Daredevil" in the process.[15]

The Avengers, reformed after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., sought to secure the alien sceptre that had been a pivotal part of the Battle of New York two years prior. The computational power of the sceptre, however, had an unexpected impact on Tony Stark's artificial intelligence projects, and gave rise to the sentient AI, Ultron. Ultron interpreted his mandate to preserve life as a mandate to wage war on organic life in order to allow his own artificial life to flourish, and so he created an android body for himself to house the newly found Infinity Stone hidden within the sceptre. The Avengers challenged Ultron's evolutionary designs, and defeated his army of robots, but at such great cost that the war saw a partial fragmentation and reformation of the team.[16]

Pym Particles resurfaced as yet another threat to the modern world when research scientist Darren Cross sought to rediscover methods of harnessing their power with a view to profiting from selling the technology to military interests. Dr. Hank Pym came out of retirement to put a stop to this plan, and drew Scott Lang, a resourceful engineer and former convict, into his sphere of influence to help him by taking on a mantle he had once worn himself. As the Ant-Man, Lang was able to halt the mass distribution of Pym's dangerous technology with the help of Dr. Pym and a few close allies.[7]

Trivia

Earth-199999 reality seems to be more scientifically oriented than Earth-616. For example, whereas the gods from the original comics have genuinely supernatural powers, in Earth-199999, the Asgardians' powers seems to be from exotic and advanced alien technology. Numerous "magical" artifacts have technological aspects and functions, Yggdrasil is a cosmic nimbus, and both Thor and Jane claim that to be "science" (Jane even cites Arthur C. Clarke's third law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"). However, the nature of the Asgardians' power and magic in general on Earth-199999 is not fully explored nor truly discards the possibility of supernatural. For example, Asgard is shown as a flat world, which clearly contradicts laws of physics, and it's also revealed that Asgardian "technology" is powered by the "Odin Force", which seems to be a sort of supernatural energy used by the Asgardians. Thor's own affirmation over this - "Your ancestors called it magic, but you call it science. I come from a land where they are one and the same." - is rather ambiguous, since while Thor is apparently agreeing with Jane's affirmation that the gods are aliens with advanced technology, this may also be interpreted that Asgardians have genuine magical powers, but that they see and use it like a alternative kind of science. If this latter is correct, then Asgardians' magic follows Niven's law: "Any sufficiently rigorously defined magic is indistinguishable from technology".

This universe was visited off-screen by the Young Avengers when they traveled the Multiverse looking for Speed.[19]

Marvel Television has allied with Netflix to create four 13-episode series focused on "Daredevil," followed by "Jessica Jones," "Iron Fist" and "Luke Cage," which would culminate in a "Defenders" mini-series.[20] These series will take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as stated by MCU writer Drew Pearce[21]

This universe's official designation was revealed in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Volume 5 hardcover.

It was confirmed by Kevin Fiege that Peter Parker is already Spider-Man in the MCU and that the reboot won't be an origin story.